Renovating Continues - And Then The Heavens Opened

At the end of last month we tackled the last two outside jobs (other than garden related items) on "The List".
And it seems that we timed these jobs perfectly as since completing them we have had plenty of rain in the way of afternoon thunderstorms typical for the subtropics at this time of year.

The first job we got done was oiling the deck and replacing the front steps which were a bit rotten.  After giving it  good clean with our pressure cleaner, letting it dry and covering neighboring paintwork with newspaper, it was time to get started.

Hubby did the cutting in and then it was just a matter of working as quickly as possible, a few boards at a time down the entire length.

Our deck wraps around the front of our house in a "L" shape with access at one end only so we had to be careful not to paint ourselves into a corner.

Some new front steps were added and these were also given a lick of oil.  Once I get the garden at the front sorted the welcome to our home will be much improved.

Then it was on to giving the south side of the house a spruce up.  This area of the house gets very little sun and because of our large water tanks the area remains a cool damp micro-climate all year round.  This is great for keeping cool mid summer but also leads to a build up of mould and a few of our weather boards had small patched of rot.

Job number one was to use the pressure clearer to get rid of the mould and dirt.

Job number two was to fix up any small areas of rot by chiseling them out and filling with a timber putty then sanding smooth ready for painting.

Then it was on to the painting with Hubby up the ladder and me on the ground.  It actually did not take that long to do and being on the cool side of the house made the job almost pleasant, well apart from the cutting in on each weather board.

So the south side of the house is now looking at it's best and it will just be a matter of a quick wash before we eventually sell.

Our last outdoor painting job was our side door which is the main door we use in and out of the house.  I was painted cream like the rest of the house and we had puttied up some hols so need a coat of paint.  Since we had a small amount of the blue paint left we decided it would look better blue.

I think it looks much better now.

So hopefully that brings us to the end of the major outside renovations jobs.  I know they have not been anything too noteworthy but to us they were small things we had been prepared to live with but we felt could give a potential buyer cause for hesitation.

We got all of these jobs done in the nick of time as since we finished we have had hot days with heavy rain and damp weather fairly consistently, which is normal here in the subtropics but it would not have made getting some of these jobs done possible.